"Yes, rich, powerful. Listen, if youwere to rescue her, the reward would be..." Luke did his best sales person pitch he practiced with his uncle back on the farm.
Pushing a fixed idea never got anyone far, so much easier to paint a big picture and let others fill in the gaps themselves.
The audience were impressed at Luke's clever negotiating skills. He surely had his father's mouth and Obi-Wan's teachings.
"What?"
"More wealth than you can imagine.".
"I don't know, I can imagine quite abit!"
"You'll get it!"
"I better!"
"I have to tell you, this Solo fellow reminds me of Hondo.", Obi-Wan remarked.
"They're both smugglers, of course money would be one thing that could change their mind.", Mace agreed with him.
"A hefty amount of it, of course", Yoda added.
"Alright kid, but you better be right about this." His manipulation was blatant and transparent but he did have a valid point. With Alderaan gone, them stuck on an imperial superweapon and half his passengers missing in action, chances of him getting paid were decreasing by the second. And he needed that money to pay off Jabba.
"If only I know where Luke is, I could've at least try visiting him.", Ahsoka stated at her master's son.
"So what's the plan? You do have a plan right?"
"Of course, just uh, lemme get these cuffs on the Wookie." Luke picked up a pair of handcuffs and approached Chewie, backing off when he got an angry roar in response.
"Okay… you put them on."
"Don't worry Chewie, I think I know what he's planning. Here's hoping it works." Han shrugged when a sceptical growl was all the response he got, but at least Chewie held out his hands for the cuffs and didn't protest any further.
Meanwhile, Ben was silently following a squad of Stormtroopers down a hallway, keeping a safe distance from them. Vader was also patrolling the halls, searching for whatever it was he had sensed earlier
Several minutes later, Han, Luke and Chewie were marching down the hallway, two Stormtroopers escorting their prisoner to the detention block while the droids remained behind in the command centre. Curious onlookers were dissuaded with the occasional roar and blaster prodding, as far as anyone was concerned, it was just a cell transfer and things were under control.
"Rrrghh, I can't see a thing in this helmet." Luke complained as he unlocked the cuffs once they were safely inside the elevator leading to the detention block.
"See? Even General Skywalker's son says it. That garbage is nothing like Clone Armor!", Rex boasted.
"What makes you say that?", Ahsoka questioned.
"We don't miss our shots, that's why."
"Huh, have they shot anything else recently?"
"You are not inspiring confidence right now. Oh here we go." Han muttered and thumbed the safety on his captured Stormtrooper blaster off when the elevator chime indicated they'd arrived.
"This is not gonna work." Han said.
"Why didn't you say so before?" Luke asked, annoyed.
"Ididsay so before."
"Their plan, what was it?" Yoda asked.
"Well, Master, the first part is fairly simple: they're posing as soldiers escorting Chewie to the prison block. After that, they need to somehow gain access to the prisoner records to find out where she is, free her and get out." Ki-Adi explained.
"No way it'll be that easy. The prison is bound to have guards in it." Anakin commented.
"Which means they either have to do it very stealthily, or they'll have to gain control by force. Considering that Luke is undoing Chewie's cuffs, I'm leaning towards the latter."
"Well they had two ways to do it; either stealth or dumb and loud."
The elevator door opened behind them and the two fake Stormtroopers led their prisoner into the detention block, which was full of guards. They were stopped by an officer
The officer on duty could only stare in surprise at the strangely coloured Wookie. "Where are you taking this… thing?"
"Prisoner transfer from B1138." Luke answered.
"I wasn't notified. I'll have to clear it." The officer stared at the trio suspiciously before waving several guards over to take over. One of the stormtroopers was far shorter than regulation allowed and the prisoner was far too calm about things, something didn't add up for him.
As soon as the guards were within range, Chewie went berserk, snapping free of the unlocked cuffs, he started throwing the guards around the place with brute force.
The audience sighed. Dumb and loud it is.
"Look out! The prisoner's loose!" Han shouted and started firing in Chewie's direction, his shots conveniently missing him and ending up as 'friendly' fire.
Luke pretended to try and melee Chewie with his gun only to hand the Wookie the weapon for more chaos.
Pulling out a spare blaster and filling the room with more bolts, the three of them worked to ice every confused and panicking imperial in the room while destroying every camera and alarm control in the place.
Han moved over to the main console and pulled a corpse off it, cursing when he saw one of the silent alarms had been tripped and an alert had already been sent. "Damnit, let's see, princess… princess… got it, she's in cell 2187. Go get her, I'll try and fix this."
As Luke went off to retrieve the princess and Chewie took up position behind cover, Han swallowed his nervousness and keyed the intercom, shutting off the alarm as he did so. "Uh, everything's fine over here, situation normal."
"What happened?" The unamused voice came from the intercom.
"Uh, we had a slight weapons malfunction, but everything's perfectly fine we're all fine here, thank you.", Han replied before adding. "How are you?"
Mace and Plo facepalmed at this, knowing that their cover is blown.
"We're sending a squad up."
"Uh negative. Negative! We have a reactor leak here. Give us a few minutes to lock it down. Large leak here, very dangerous." Han said and prayed they bought his bluff.
"Who is this? What's your operating number?"
Han silently cursed as his streak of bad luck continued, and blasted the console to pieces. What the hell do you mean there are no reactors in this room?
The audience laughed at this course of action, though it was pretty clear he can't talk out of this anymore.
"Boring conversation anyway. Luke! Better hurry it up, we're about to have lots of company!" Han called out and took position behind cover, as he locked down the doors. If the Stormtroopers wanted in, they'd have to blast their way in, hopefully it'd buy them some extra time.
"He has to hurry otherwise they would move in to execute the Princess.", Padmé exclaimed in worry.
"Have faith in him, Senator Amidala. I'm sure he can do this.", Anakin replied, though he was unsure if Padmé knew this was her son too.
Luke didn't reply as he counted down the doors before finding the one he was searching for. Hitting the door controls, the door slid open with a small hiss and an unamused Leia was waiting on the other side. She stirred and sat up on one elbow.
"Aren't you a little short to be a Stormtrooper?" she asked snidely.
"Well, excuse me, Princess!", Anakin called out to her for calling his son like that.
"Huh?" It took Luke brain a while to catch up to reality, it had been too busy drinking in Leia's beauty. She looked good in the holo, but seeing her first-hand put it all to shame. "Oh, right, yeah, the uniform." She took off her helmet. "I'm Luke Skywalker, I'm here to rescue you."
"You're who?" Leia sat up, confused.
"I'm here to rescue you. I've got your R2 unit, I'm here with Ben Kenobi!"
That got her attention. "Ben Kenobi! Where is he?"
"Come on!" Luke took her hand and led her into the hallway.
"Man, I will never get used to referring Obi-Wan to by that name." Ahsoka complained.
"It doesn't really suit him, does it?" Luminara agreed.
Obi-Wan remained silent though internally the memories of Satine coming back to him because she was the first to call him Ben when he was tasked in protecting her in Mandalore. And this was one way for his future to keep her memory.
In another part of the battle station, Vader was conferring with Tarkin.
"He is here." he said, completely sure of himself.
"Obi-Wan Kenobi? What makes you think so?" Tarkin questioned with a frown.
"A tremor in the Force." he explained, "The last time I felt it, was in the presence of my old master."
"But surely, he must be dead by now."
"Don't underestimate the Force." Vader warned.
"The Jedi are extinct. Their fire has gone out in the universe." A loud ding alerted Tarkin to an awaiting transmission, "You, my friend are all that is left of their religion."
"A Jedi, he is not.", Yoda firmly stated with a frown towards the Dark Lord.
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